Drinkability??

There’s been a lot of talk recently (especially last night) about drinkability of beers and according to Dom from Marble it’s a hot topic between brewers at the moment.

It seems to have different meanings depending on who you are listening to. Some say it’s a way justifying a boring beer, other say it’s a sign of a great beer, maybe it’s both, maybe it’s neither.

I use the term drinkable quite a lot on here and I am pretty sure I’ve used it to describe rather boring and bland ales as well as fantastically full flavoured ones. For me this doesn’t automatically make the bland ones great, it just means that they are easy enough to drink but I wouldn’t necessarily want to drink them again.

There are some beers I’ve drank that have been truly great and looking back at them I’ve usually said I would love to drink them again and could certainly drink more than one, on the other hand there are other beers I have drank that were really good but I couldn’t drink a lot of it, usually because they were high ABV or had an unusual taste that was great but would maybe get sickly after more than a small amount.

Here’s the BUT, and its a rather big BUT, I want to see more full flavoured ales that are drinkable, that I want to go out and buy a case, or even a mini keg of, ones that I could drink regularly and more than one of things like Adnams Innovation, Crown’s UIPA, Thornbridge’s Jaipur and Dark Horse’s Hetton Pale Ale. There seems to be beers coming out left right and centre at the moment where the ABV is creeping up and as much as I love barley wine style beers they aren’t something I can drink regularly so I personally don’t but that many of them.

Where do you stand? what does drinkability mean to you? does it mean anything? let me know by leaving a comment below.

9 comments on “Drinkability??”

I’ll be putting a post together on it at some point too, as I’m sure Dave and others will, so it’s interesting to see what everything thinks of as drinkability. I do think it’s one of the most important things in a beer but it also plays off against context. You can play around with semantics too and use the term in different ways. I’m really interested to see what the IBD research is saying too.

Drinkability means re-buyability which means you want more than one, in essence. Or something like that.

last night i had an entire night drinking my own new beer ‘Sledge Hammer IPA’ Now usually i try my ales when i see them on a bar, but as Sheffield has aproximately 120 different beers in a five mile radius i tend to drink someone elses most of the time. The reason i drank my beer all night is that it is the first time i have tried it in a pub and it was outstanding. I’m usually more modest than that when talking about my own beers but this really is a cracker. Simcoe, Amarillo, Cascade, Chinook and Centennial make this a hop fest in the mouth. I could drink that beer all night every night and so the word drinkability comes in. Surley it simply means it is very drinklable.

Mark and pete b, thanks for the comments, look forward to reading your blog posts on the subject, i definitely think its a subject that will divide opinion and cause lots of discussion – which is great, i love the way beer can do that.

Pete R – thats some hop list, im almost tempted to get on the train to Sheffield to come and try some!

Well, as it so happens, I’m just writing now and popped in here to get a link. There’s a coincidence. Pack a spare liver when you visit, it’s strong beer all the way. You can wash it down with my 6.2% IPA if you like.

It’s a difficult one, ‘drinkability’, and one that will no doubt get a lot of airtime on various blogs this week. It’s been raging on for years, particulary amongst US brewers, as they straddle the outer limits of brewing and have done so for a while. For me, I use for old adage that drinkability serves only a certain type of beer. for example, a brewer worth his salt should have ‘extreme’ beers under his mantle that test the limits of flavour, ingreidents and technique, but should also be able to brew a beer that people want more than one of. I guess it’s a commercial decision. IF you want to succeed – you need people to drink your beer. Personally, I veer toward the boundary – for example, Jaipur IPA. I want to taste a beer that’s vibrant and alive, but I want to have more than one. And for me, that’s more to do with taste – and balance – than ABV.

I prefer the term used by Belgian breweries; “digestible.” It encompasses what I think it is generally meant by “drinkable” but also gives an important nuance to what I am really looking for in a beer. I’m looking for more than just the ability to drink one after another… I want to feel good after I drink a beer and feel like my body and soul is nourished.

Semantics aside, I totally agree. “Drinkability” or “Digestibility” is really important to a good beer. Is the kind of beer that you can really develop a relationship with rather than simply analyzing it.